


A Day In the Life Of Drumbot Brian: a tale in nine parts

by eminorseven



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Brian having many inexplicable functions because funney robot man, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff and Humor, Gen, but it's mostly fluff I promise!, but its only to stop sadbot Brian, one leetle bit of, the Mechanisms being weird immortal people that are unfazed by small injuries at this point, they actually acknowledge their feelings for once, with ONE bit of angst because dadbot gets overwhelmed am I projecting (perhaps)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26159608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eminorseven/pseuds/eminorseven
Summary: The saga of Drumbot Brian, resident dadbot, running errands all across the starship Aurora during one particular two day stretch.All the Mechanisms call for him in a row, and boy, he's getting too old for this. What does he need to do to get some peace and quiet for once.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 78





	A Day In the Life Of Drumbot Brian: a tale in nine parts

**Author's Note:**

> A day in the life of one Drumbot Brian, resident dadbot, running errands all across the starship Aurora.
> 
> (TW: Part VIII (eight) has a thought spiral and minor descriptions of a panic attack on Brian's part, but it's not too detailed. Otherwise, its canon-typical Mechanisms violence, but on the DL.)

It all starts as a typical day for Drumbot Brian. Wake up, make breakfast (leave some for Nastya underneath the vent above the kitchen since she is very polite and always returns the dishes), pilot the ship, make sure no one is dying in a way that would stain the floor too badly, pilot the ship-

And then someone calls out:

“Brian!”

A familiar cry at this point in his stay with the crew of the Aurora. He stalls for a second, before releasing his hands from the controls. He looks up at the ceiling, praying that the Aurora could keep herself on autopilot for a couple hours, and marches off to the origin of the sound.

# I Ivy Wants A Book

“If you do not get the book for me, I will die.” 

Brian blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“I have been here for exactly four days, three hours and twenty four seconds. If I move, I will die. So, please? May I have the book? I know you have retractable arms.” 

Brian hadn’t noticed that his arms were now behind his back. “Uh.”

“Look at my eyes, Brian. They are very bloodshot. I have not consumed anything since I last moved. Do you want me to die?” If Brian didn’t know any better he would have missed the mischievous glint in Ivy’s eyes, set against an otherwise neutral expression. She had clearly been planning this. “This is simply the most logical way to go about it.”

Brian narrows his eyes. “Which book.”

Ivy turns around ever so slowly towards the ceiling high bookshelves, always on the verge of collapsing, gesturing towards a red leather bound copy of Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre. “That one.” It just so happened to be located right four shelves above and two to the left of her.

“Can you not just use a ladder, Ivy? I really need to get back to piloting.”

“But, _Brian_ , the ladder is over _there_. The percentage of me dying is ever increasing. Look,” she retracted her hand. “Now it’s a 63.6% chance.” Sleep deprived, starving, dehydrated, Ivy had a flair for the dramatic. She points at the damned ladder, less than two meters away.

Brian sighed. “I guess I’m already here.” He flaps his hands about to warm them up, it had been a while since he last used this function and he wasn’t going to relive having his arms shot out for a week again, since he somehow got himself convinced that playing Extreme Jump Rope with Raphaella and the Toy Soldier was a good idea. 

_[run_retractable arms]_

The internal mechanisms in his left hand twists and whirrs to life. It vibrates, ready to pop off at first notice, and he aims it at the book. “Oh, if you could do your best not to damage the book, I really would prefer not to have to have two dead bodies on this floor-” Perhaps he should steady it with his other hand? _THWACK!_

The hand shot out, causing Brian to do a double take and scramble to properly grasp the book. He slowly reeled it in. 

“Thank you, Brian,” Ivy clapped, and winces at the pain of not having moved in several hours. She genuinely looked so very pleased with herself. “Would you like to stay awhile, I could read it aloud?”

“You know what, sure, I can stay for a bit.”

Ivy read on, scanning the page with meticulous eyes and archiving everything in her brain. Brian assumed her’s was either infinitely more sophisticated than his, or his one was built with restrictions that kept it mostly human. He had to admit that it was nice to loosen up a little and he let himself close his eyes for once.

Thirty minutes pass. Right, that was too long away from the flight deck.

“Thank you for the, hm, existential crisis, Ivy. I’m going to head back now.”

“Mhm.” Ivy waves her hand ineffectually, completely distracted now. Brian turns around before smiling at himself, and walks out.

Halfway through the corridor back to the cockpit, a clear, almost angelic voice calls out: 

“ _Brian?_ ”

# II Raphaella Has Experiments To Run

“So! I was messing around with hydrochloric acid, and I’m certain that it can help with rust but I may have accidentally melted off part of Marius’ arm and ooh, he shot me to get away, but that’s not the point. Could you possibly-”

Brian had already turned around and began walking towards the exit. He rather loud fluttering of mechanical wings from behind him.

“You can’t leave, Brian. The door has been outfitted with a new plasma lock, and I don’t think you want to be testing that just yet!” Raphaella was enthusiastic, completely unaware that perhaps she shouldn’t be trapping unwilling test subjects in her lab.

Brian considers this. “Maybe you could disable my retractable hands and then I’d actually have an excuse to stop being Ivy’s personal arm grabber.”

“Ooh, I’ve been there. One time she asked me to get one from the top shelf and I knocked over a whole stack of books. And then maybe like three more. Never had a headache that bad after dying, it was like being hungover but multiplied by 4.89! I know this, I did the science.” She wiggled her fingers at him.

“This time it was that red leather bound version of Being and Nothingness.”

“Again? Wow, you’re like our dad, instantly coming to the rescue. She asked me to go grab it four days ago? Ooh, ouchies!” With a _crash_ a whole set of test tubes cascaded to the ground. And also her head. She gets up with half a test tube sticking out of the back of her head.

Brian winces. “That’s strange, she claimed that she hadn’t moved since then.”

Sweeping the mess underneath a table with her foot, Raphaella picks up a beaker filled with some murky looking liquid, exasperated. “Maybe she got Marius to put it back! But hey, we’re getting sidetracked! So. If you could so kindly present your arms for me?”

“I suppose a few more minutes wouldn’t hurt.” Brian replied, holding them out. 

Raphaella pours it all over his forearms. 

“Wait, I meant my hands specifically not the entire- I still need these technically- oh, wow, that feels surprisingly relaxing.”

“Really?” Raphaella pins her hands onto the table, and bounces on the spot. The broken test tube fell off with a _pop_. “Oh, oh, oh! Let me grab my notebook, I’m sure it’s here somewhere.” 

She ran around the lab excitedly, opening and shutting what seemed to be random drawers to Brian while ruffling her hair about to find the pen that stuck in her ponytail. He had long since stopped trying to ask her to organize when Ashes sent him on a mission there to check on the lab’s supplies because even _they_ didn’t want to step foot inside. Every time he came back it just seemed to be even messier, out of spite.

“Now, tell me everything you feel in excruciating detail! And I mean every single detail.” Raphaella leans down on the table to reach for the beaker. “ _Aha!_ I see! I just mislabeled this one, I’m, uh, not actually sure what it is. I could have sworn that the one on Marius’ arm was muriatic acid...”

He vaguely describes the experience of potentially having his arms melted off as well, including the emotional repercussions. Raphaella takes it all in, animatedly responding to every new detail. About halfway through, she gets distracted onto a tangent about magnets discussing the merits of the scientific method (it was quite one sided with Brian indulging her and making agreeing noises whenever she paused) while Raphaella tossed magnets at him and he would try to catch them with an available body part.

Brian definitely spends more than a half an hour there. “Sorry to interrupt, Raphaella, but are we done now?”

“Oh! We are, yeah, we’ve been done for a good while!” She gestures to the pile of magnets that whittled down to a measly forty-five fridge magnets.

“Great. It was nice spending time here, with my arms still safely attached to my body. I’m going to head out now.” Brian walks towards the door, and it instantly activates, a blue glow emanating from the edges. Most of the magnets on his body fall off with a clatter.

“Er… Do you mind disabling this door for me?”

“Yes! Hold on!”

Raphaella presses an absurdly long combination of characters onto a computer, and with that, Brian was back on the mission to get back to piloting.

Or so he thought.

Two voices in unison. Then some gunshots.

“Brian!” “Briaaan.”

One rolled the r’s a little harder, and the other was accented Cyberian. 

# III Jonny and Nastya Are Arguing (Again)

“Nastya won’t tell me and it’s getting really fucking annoying killing her, because then she just shuts up for longer!”

“Jonny’s harassing me, can you get him to leave, or kill him, whichever is faster.”

Brian inhales. 

Then exhales.

When dealing with the siblings it was always best to get them to tire out of arguing and then ultimately win both over through a compromise. It was like dealing with children. Which is exactly what he was doing. (He was excluding the fact that they were exceptionally dangerous children who were also armed, as evidenced by the dried blood on the side of Jonny’s head and Nastya sporting some stab wounds leaking mercury on the ground.)

“See, I was just rummaging around Nastya’s closet-” 

“What! What were you doing in my closet, you cretin-”

“Shut up! The adults are talking,” Nastya glares daggers (or something more sharp and durable, perhaps a space zweihander) at him, but doesn’t reply, seemingly waiting for a moment to cut in again. “And she had this whole collection of maid outfits! What the fuck! That’s so weird!”

“Your face is weird.” 

Jonny makes a cranking motion with his hand and pulls up a middle finger, and Nastya sticks out her tongue at him. 

_[run_testing patience]_

“Okay, I don’t have the entire story yet, Jonny could you finish, and then we’ll go through Nastya’s version?”

“Finally, someone who listens,” Nastya appeared to be interrupting again but Brian gave her a pointed look. “-so I decide, why don’t I politely ask Nastya what the fuck she’s doing with all these maid outfits, like where did you even get any of these?”

It took all of 3 seconds for Nastya to snap instantly, “Politely? What part of that was polite, you _shot_ me, I was in the middle of something! No, now it’s my turn to tell the story, you’ve told it completely wrong.”

Jonny looks like he was going to reply but she claps her hands over his mouth. He began to squirm violently but her grip was like iron.

“I just have an esoteric costume collection that I’m holding onto for Marius because his closet is overflowing, and I just happen to have kept everyone’s past Intergalactic Halloween costumes. They aren’t mine, you dolt.”

Brian needs a vacation. “Jonny, have you considered that maybe you shouldn’t be looting around in Nastya’s closet- ah, no.” He holds up a finger to silence Jonny, who’s mouth opened. Nastya shoots him a smug smile. 

“You’re not my dad, you can’t tell me what to do!” Jonny retorts.

“As an owner of one of the aforementioned maid outfits, they’re very comfortable, thank you Nastya, you can’t really judge, Jonny. Nastya, well actually you haven’t really done anything wrong aside from choosing to escalate this conversation that could have been answered very easily.” Her smile drops and she glares at Brian, before realizing that she should probably redirect that anger to the source.

“What were you doing in my closet anyways?”

“I wanted to steal a coat, obviously. I was cold.” Jonny declares, confidently.

Nastya smacks him lightly on the forehead with the back of her hand. “You could have asked! I would have given it to you! Stupid!”

“No, you’re the stupid one-” They started off again but it was more lighthearted this time. Less gunshots.

Satisfied with the resolution of the argument, Brian smiles to himself and sets off to reclaim control of the ship. So far the Aurora had been doing a good job of keeping them level, and while they were essentially flying in a straight line they would have to make some turns in the next couple hours and he didn’t know how well that would go.

A rougher voice, followed by the characteristic _boom!_ of an explosion calls:

_“Brian!”_

# IV Tim Wants Another Pair of Eyes

“Okay so here’s my plan- I am trying out this new set of explosives that I frankensteined together and I want to test it against a specific metal. Unfortunately, the only thing I know that has the metal I can access now, and I know that we aren’t making landfall anytime soon, happens to be my eyes! I still need to be able to see, so Brian, pretty please, can we swap for, say, thirty minutes?”

Brian wipes his face with his hands. “Last time we tried this, you got a headache for a week, then you shot at me, for something that _you_ instigated.”

Tim slings an arm around Brian’s shoulders and puts a hand up, pointing at a vague location in the ceiling. 

“This is for a, uh, what does Raphaella say all the time- an experiment! You help her with her ones all the time, can’t you make an exception for me?”

“Can you uninstall the foot rockets then?” Brian asked. It was less of a question and more of a demand. This was a long-standing argument and he knew Tim’s response before it even left his mouth. _But it’s so cool!_

“But it’s so cool!” Ah. There it was. You tried, Brian, you tried so very hard.

He pulls up a stray metal chair, which has various black spots and dents, clearly having been used for some other “experiments” and perches himself on top of it.

_[run_eye removal?]_

Brian’s vision circuits out as soon as he removes them, and held his eyes out for Tim. Tim gave an enthusiastic whoop, promising that he would give them back as soon as possible. Brian could only hear the next part.

The beginnings of a deafening explosion rang throughout the armory and Brian could hear Tim cackling in the background. Brian twiddles his thumbs and shuts off his hearing, setting it on a ten minute timer. He didn’t want to find out what could have possibly gone wrong too quickly, or to hear Tim complain about the headaches again. A stray piece of metal hits him in the face and he takes another deep breath for the day.

He felt a tap on the shoulder and his eyes were unceremoniously shoved back into his hand, he places them back into the sockets. When his vision returned he was face to face with Tim but he was completely unrecognizable. He was covered from head to toe in what Brian assumed to be soot and had various pieces of shrapnel embedded in his body. Tim removed his goggles, leaving an outline around his eyes like a reverse panda, and revealed that they seemed perfectly fine.

“Did you stand in front of it again?”

“Yep! It was highly worth it, ten out of ten, would try to blow up the moon with it again.”

“And did you see any of it?”

“Nope!”

Brian places his hands on his knees and stands up, striding out of the room quickly. Tim calls after him, teasingly, “Thanks, Dad!”, cheerfully rummaging around for some tweezers to get the pieces of metal out. Brian shakes his head, and checks his internal clock. If he ran he could probably make it back onto the bridge before anything else happened-  
  
A cool, collected voice calls quietly:

“Brian.”

# V Ashes Needs a Scale (Don’t Ask)

“Brian, I’m calculating the total expenses from this month and I need to borrow the thingy.”

"Could you be more... specific?"

They made a vague gesture with their hands. “You know, the thingy.”

“Is this about the scale again? Because I could’ve sworn that we bought you one a couple planets ago.” 

Ashes smirked. Bad sign. They point at a charred pile of _something_ next to a vent, being blown away by a slight breeze.

“Ah.” Brian noted that the room was in dire need of a sweep and or vacuuming and if Ashes wasn’t going to be doing it (which he knew for a fact, was true) he was going to have to factor that into the weekend cleaning schedule. 

“Useful kindling.”

“It was made of plastic, Ashes.”

“So?”

There was no use in arguing with Ashes because Mx. O’Reilly always, _always_ wins.

“Well. Since you asked _so_ nicely.”

_[run_weighing scale]_

Brian was holding out his palms together with the top of his shirt open, a little compartment pops open, revealing a screen that showed how heavy the current bar of gold was. It read 12.4 kg. Ashes notes it down and places another one on top. “I’m not entirely sure what sort of joke the doc was making, including this in my body.” 

“It’s very useful, so I don’t think we can complain too much. You can’t say that the toaster was a bad addition.”

“The toaster is very useful, yeah. Brunch was saved many times by that toaster. A hero for the ages.”

“Pff, you're practically our parent, makin' us brunch.”

“You said it yourself, it’s very useful!”

Ashes carefully retrieves the current bar and replaces it. “Strange. This one is 12.39 kg. Now that completely messes up my calculations. I think I have to start again, hold on.”

“Would I be able to leave if I said that my arms were getting tired?”

“You know that’s not true.”

“Doesn’t hurt to ask.”

“And it doesn’t hurt to stand there for just a little longer.” They got him there. “Do you want a chair?”

“I’m guessing I’ll be here a while so, sure.”

They talk about possibly visiting a beach planet, and plundering whatever tourist traps and bougie hotels that would be there (“Think about it we could be freeing all of the locals from the daily drudgery of tourism!” “And then we can take all of their shit. I like that.”), and Ashes gets a maniacal glint in their eye. Brian just wanted to be on Vacation Brian mode. He wistfully lets his imagination run wild.

He feels something being pried off his back. “We’re done now. More importantly though, why do you have a magnet on you that says ‘ _I Heart New New New Las Vegas_ ’?”

Brian opens his eyes and both of them simultaneously say: “Raphaella.”

They grin at each other. “That was a fun planet. Shame it’s been burnt to the ground.” Ashes snickered.

“Ah, I didn’t get to join the usual festivities that time, I was talking to the Toy Soldier on the landing pad.”

“Pity. You missed out on the casino heist. That’s where all this came from.”

Brian raises an eyebrow. “We’re calling Raphaella and Tim punching a hole through the bank vault a “heist” now?”

Ashes dismisses him with a wave and a breezy, “Thanks, Brian.” They got back to whatever they were up to before (Brian never asked, and they liked it that way) and Brian buttons his shirt up again. 

Okay. At this point in time clearly he has no time to get back to actually piloting.

He looks up at the ceiling, not really sure where to look. “Aurora, I trust that you can keep us afloat for a bit longer, give me an hour, I’ll be back.”

Brian takes off to the kitchen. He’s got work to do.

# VI Marius is Bored (Again)

“You’re cooking? _Without_ me?”

Brian winced. He turns around slowly, as if he was dealing with a scared baby animal, in order to prevent the activation of Marius’ tear ducts.

“Well,” If Brian could sweat, he would be sweating. “Technically, I am… Baking.” Marius pouts and crosses his arms. “Without you. So it’s not the same thing!”

“First Raphaella melts off half my arm, and then I die from the stupid plasma door that she wouldn’t disable till I broke it, then she got mad and we got into a fight, and, and then I don’t get invited to the cooking party!”

“Baking, Marius. There’s a distinction here.”

“My point is that my day was instantly ruined by Raphaella, okay? She’s had it out for me ever since I left halfway through an experiment. Which I technically agreed to but I wanted out!”

“I met up with her earlier. Melted? I’m surprised that it wasn’t just a very tingly sensation for you, I found it quite soothing.“

“We’re made of different metal, Brian,” Marius knocks his hand on the metal one, “-that’s why I can stick my hand into the oven without the mitts! And speaking of which! Why are you _baking_ , then, _without_ me?”

Brian takes a moment for himself, imagining a beach, with him sitting near the lapping waters, Space Hawaiian shirt on and a mimosa in hand. Vacation Brian. It’s still in reach. It can happen, one day.

Okay. He can do this.

“Right. Why don’t you help me with this then? I can’t promise that you can eat it all, and don’t think I don’t notice you eating the cookie dough once every time you think I’m not looking, but you can roll out the dough and start cutting them out. I need these for a tea party.”

“I didn’t know that you did tea parties! Why haven’t I been invited?”

Brian’s internal fan begins to turn loudly. “Er… It’s very exclusive. Non-flesh Mechanisms only.” 

“Ah, what a shame. I’d like to think I would only liven it up! Aren’t we all technically a little bit non-flesh?”

“I think the criteria is that most of your body is mechanical.” Brian replied, gesturing at his entire body. He hands a rolling pin to Marius who snatches it from his hands with enthusiasm, and sets to work.

“Fair enough!”

The two of them chat as Brian cut out several star and rocket shaped cookies (the heart ones were destroyed sometime after the Cosmic Valentine’s Day Incident that no one on board has acknowledged for the past century or so, and Nastya had squirreled away the circular ones to be used for who knows what). Marius was moping about that inspector from the Yggdrasil system again so Brian was glad he had a distraction for once. Brian talks about his day so far, recounting how he dealt with the four previous Mechanisms. He doesn’t mention how tired he is.

When they finally placed the baking tray inside the oven (recently cleared out from octokitten gloop), Brian checked his internal clock and _oh no_ , he was going to be late.

“Marius, I need you to stick your arm in the oven again, I’m going to get a plate.” Brian threw open several cabinets and scoured them for clean dishes. He really needed to get on their case about that.

Marius looks at his arm. Then at the oven. And then Brian. Then back at his arm. “O-kay then, but I can’t promise that the cookies won’t have some sort of acid on them!” He waves it around, trying to get the last of the liquid that had seeped in between the gaps in the metal, and pulls out the tray. 

“Woah, that’s hotter than I thought it would be, do you think we burned-”

Brian cuts him off, and takes the tray wholesale. “Thanks!” He bounds towards the exit, past Marius, who’s hand is still inside.

An enthusiastic, high-pitched call:

“Brian!”

# VII The Toy Soldier’s Tea Party

Brian hurries down the corridor. If he ran, adding some propulsion from his feet rockets he could probably make it on time. 

He bursts through the door. “Sorry, I’m late!”

The Toy Soldier was mid-pouring hot water from a kettle into the teapot. “Do not worry, old bean! You are just on time! I checked my internal clock!”

“Oh, you have one of those too?”

“I can not say that I’ve had one before this moment, but yes! Now I do!”

Brian knew not to question this. He removes his hat and smooths out his hair, placing the tray of cookies on the table. It sat next to the usual array of mini sandwiches (all perfectly cut) and scones (regrettably filled with teeth).

“My, what marvelous cookies you have brought today! They look nicely burnt! Did you add any-”

“No.”

It smiled at him, and it’s teeth seemed to shine brighter than before. “Ah well, it was worth a shot!”

Brian shook his head.

“I have all sorts of different sandwiches today! You may notice,” it turns its head to blink at him awkwardly (Brian assumes this was supposed to be a wink), “that there are more than usual! Marius was very keen on helping!”

“Oh? I should’ve just gotten to the kitchen earlier, we could have cooked together.”

“Next time! But, for now, bone apple teeth!” It cried, taking a bite out of the scones. 

Brian reaches for a cookie.

They had started a decently regular tradition of spending time with each other and talking about the ins and outs, intricacies and irregularities of living as a mostly inorganic being. Today’s topic was on their internal mechanisms, since apparently they both shared a clock (although the jury was still out on if that was a recent development or not, it never gave him a proper answer), a fan (they both detached various appendages to check, apparently it had an arm fan too!), and a Space Swiss Army knife (Brian’s was pre-installed but the Toy Soldier made its own).

A couple hours pass by and they finish the tray of cookies. Brian guiltily checks the time. “As much as I love this, TS, I need to actually get back to piloting. Somehow I’ve managed to go through all of the crew in a row and I’m exhausted.”

“That is no problem, Drumbot! See you sometime! That is a threat!”

The Toy Soldier gave him a salute and started to clean up the clutter, promising that it would bring the dirty dishes to the kitchen later. Brian knew that there was a good chance it would slip its mind but oh well, he had a more pressing issue. He said goodbye, ducking out of the room and stood in the corridor.

He waits.

And he waits a little longer.

He waits exactly ten whole minutes. 

_[run_high frequency hearing]_

Now that was one upgrade from Nastya that he appreciated very much. He strains to hear the rest of the ship. 

Nothing.

At long last he makes his way to the bridge and corrects the position of the ship, thanks the Aurora, and sets off to his quarters to take a nap. Well, more like rest mode.

Finally. Some peace and quiet.

Or so he thought.

# VIII Brian Is Alone 

_[run_thought spiral]_

When he made it to his room he collapsed on the bed.

He quickly realizes that he, despite everything, does not want to be alone anymore. He was exhausted but it was a good kind of exhausted. One where he knew that he’d spent time with people he liked. 

He had already been alone for far too long. 

He didn’t remember where he came from, what he did or who he was, crashing onto that lonely planet. He had made a name for himself with his achievements. And he had been punished for it. 

He could still viscerally remember every fiber in his body freezing, how his blood flowed back to his internal organs and he felt each one shutting down one by one. At some point, his brain had stopped working and he could only vaguely remember feeling his heart go _thump, thump… thump_ , in an ever-slowing beat, the heartbeat that he used to count the rhythms when he played on the drums, something that was always present and always there and then it was gone.

And then he woke up. With a completely different body. Almost nothing left. A new chance to restart. 

And yet he’s made the exact same mistakes. He’s trying to please everyone again and they’re just going to leave him the first chance they have, once he stops being useful.

He feels his throat constrict and damn that Doctor Carmilla, she gave him all of these gadgets and gizmos and yet didn’t take away fucking anxiety.

The inside of his personal quarters was nothing compared to the cold of space but the feeling might as well be exactly the same. He was no longer used to being on his lonesome on this loud and eventful ship, even if his list of tasks never ran out and someone would always be calling his name. But he was only there because he was useful. He had all these little things that were put in his body without his consent and people were using him and that was all that he was good for, no one actually wanted him around for actual Brian-related reasons.

Of course not.

And so Drumbot Brian does something he had never done since the early days of being mechanized. 

He shuts down.

Involuntarily.

# IX Brian Is Not Alone 

Brian had been away for a whole day. 

Throughout the Aurora, all sorts of cries were heard: “Usually when I call his name loud enough, he comes running!” “Has anyone seen Brian?” “Brian?”

The Mechanisms minus one, were all sorely missing their Drumbot. And his absence was rocking the ship in ways they didn’t expect. Quite literally. That, and the Aurora was quickly careening out of control. She needed a pilot and Jonny was not about to give control to Tim or Marius no matter how much they begged him. He didn’t trust Nastya not to do something fucking bizarre while trying to get the ship back on track either. Just because they were siblings, it didn’t mean that he was going to be nice about things.

But Brian would be.

Jonny took it upon himself to do something about it. 

“I’m calling a ship meeting. As your captain-” 

“First mate.” Tim interjected.

“ _Captain_. I am calling an official search party for our missing pilot. Who we need. Desperately actually, because-”

The ship tilts slightly too far and all of them but the Toy Soldier lose their footing. It notices that everyone else has stumbled and pretends to trip, slightly delayed.

“That.” Ashes helpfully supplied.

Nastya, who had held on to the wall of the ship, pressed her ear to it. “Aurora tells me that he is in his quarters, but she cannot seem to get any life readings from inside.”

“Shit, is he dead in there? Should we go check?”

Ivy bites her lip. “There’s a 62% chance that he’s shut down. I think he was juggling piloting duties before making the rounds to help all of us do something. I know this because I asked first.”

“He did mention that he was very tired when he got to our tea party!” The Toy Soldier pipes up.

The Mechanisms take a moment to think. All felt varying degrees of guilt, but were unwilling to show it.

No one speaks up. The Toy Soldier stays quiet out of peer pressure.

Several moments pass.

Marius breaks the silence. “Right, since all of you emotionally constipated pirates can’t seem to do anything without prompting, I have a plan!” 

Ivy frowns at him. “Run it by us before you do anything, Marius. We do not want a repeat of the Cosmic Valentine’s Day Incident.”

“Oh, that was Marius?” Tim asks.

Marius gives her a humorless smile, and continues, “We have seemingly asked too much of our Drumbot, and I, as your resident doctor with several very real degrees in psychology, think that our best bet is to confront him as soon as possible and tell him that we didn’t mean anything by it!”

He turns on his heel to face Jonny, placing his hands on his shoulders. “And you, _el capitan_ ," Marius mimics Jonny's finger quotes, "-will be in charge of our little apology. For overwhelming him.”

“ _What!_ Why me?”

“Weren’t you supposed to be in charge?” Nastya teases.

Jonny scowls, and wiggles out from under Marius’ arms. “Fine. But this is for my honor, as captain.”

* * *

They gathered around the door, letting Nastya, Ivy and Raphaella prop him up. Nastya fiddles around with a panel on his arm. 

“I think a processor shorted out, but I can’t detect what could have caused it. Unless, well,” Nastya picked up the top hat, squashed, on the ground and re-adjusted the goggles and rose on top of it. “-he caused it himself. That should do it. Now quick, everyone, get out.”

Ashes roughly pushes Jonny inside.

“I’m going, I’m going! You could be nicer about this, I’m taking one for the team.” Jonny complains.

“So could you.” Jonny sticks his tongue out at them, and they shrug. 

_[run_drumbot brian]_

Brian came to. He had a pounding headache and while he didn’t exactly remember what hangovers in a fully organic body really felt like, he assumed this was something close. He groggily wipes a hand across his eyes instinctively, before remembering that his body doesn’t exactly work that way anymore.

“Oh, wow, I don’t think that’s happened since... What are you doing in my room, Jonny.” It was less a question and more a defensive threat.

“Er.” Jonny tries to conceal his wandering hands, which were scrambling to find a gun to either shoot himself, Brian or Tim. Speaking of which… He looks back at Tim, who waved his precious revolver back at him, a smug grin on his face. Jonny glares.

“I am here on a diplomatic mission. Representing the rest of the crew. As captain.” Tim’s mouth automatically opens, a Pavlovian response, and Marius clamps his metal hand over it. Tim scrabbles at it.

“Okay. And?”

“We don’t want you not here. Yes.” Jonny blushes, half out of embarrassment, half pure rage at the crew.

Nastya buries her face in her hands. She could feel the quicksilver pooling in her cheeks, curse the second-hand embarrassment of watching your brother be absolutely mortifying. She peeks out from behind them, and looks at Ashes, hissing out, “Why did we pick Jonny to do this again?” 

Ashes shrugs. “He’s the first mate. And what, did you want to do it instead?” 

Nastya vigorously shook her head. 

“That’s what I thought.”

Brian stares at Jonny. “That may be the nicest thing you’ve ever told me.”

If Jonny was beet red before, there was steam coming out of his ears now. “We wanted to, _hnrk_ , spend time with you… and we didn’t know how to say it properly, or value your time.” He mumbles the rest of it, words coming out slightly choked in the pain of having to be genuine for the first time in a couple of centuries.

“Did you script that?”

“No!” Jonny replied, hotly. He breaks eye contact and crosses his arms. “...maybe.”

“Right.”

Raphaella cranes her neck up to see. It was not that she was any significant amount shorter than everyone else, but they were all crowded around the door. It was then that the brilliant idea (a scientific genius, really) of using her wings to her advantage to get a better vantage point pops into her mind. Why not! For science! 

She flaps her wings experimentally and _woah_ , she wasn’t used to this new pair yet, oh she’s a little higher than expected, actually much, much higher than she expected, and with a loud _thud_ , Raphaella knocks her head on the ceiling. 

“Ouch!” The rest of the Mechanisms cringe.

Brian looks over Jonny’s shoulder towards the door. “Was that Raphaella?” 

In perfect unison, a chorus of seven voices, in addition to Jonny, who was fiddling with the gun belt again, rang out a: “No.”

“Are you all here?”

“ _No_ , that was your imagination.” Jonny grits out between his teeth.

Brian cracks a smile.

_[run_friendship]_

“You can all come in now.”

Ivy steps forward first. “I’m sorry, Brian, it’s just very difficult to get you in the library, and that is partially my fault for shooting anyone who touches the books on sight, but I genuinely do like to read to you and talk about philosophy.”

Raphaella peeks in, having shoved her way forward. “And I’m sorry I kept you in the lab for that long, it wasn’t my place to demand you for your time. Magnets are just very fun! And you are very fun too Brian! I will disable the lock so you can leave when you need to.”

Nastya follows suit. “I apologize that I continuously bring you to mediate for me and Jonny’s fights, I will do a better job of controlling myself. That is not a promise, but I can try.”

Jonny sheepishly elbows Nastya out of the way. “Yeah. Sorry. I’ll stop shooting her. That is also not a promise. In fact, I am lying. But I am… sorry.” He mumbled.

“The eye swaps are fun, even if I get a headache afterwards. It’s nice to know that someone understands. But I know I call you for silly reasons sometimes, so I’m sorry about that.” Tim pauses, before adding: “I’ll remove the rocket boots.“ He fails to conceal a pout at that.

Brian laughs. “You don’t have to do that.” 

“Oh, thank god.”

“I keep calling you to do quartermaster missions for me on the reg for a reason, Brian, but I didn’t know you were so swamped that day. I’ll be mindful of that.” Ashes gives a nod.

Marius makes full eye contact while maintaining an open posture. This made Brian weirdly uncomfortable. “I’m sorry if I was being too pushy, but I really do love cooking with you! I’ll be more patient, but know that I will be in the kitchen when you are ready!”

“Do not worry about keeping our schedule to a T, Drumbot! You are allowed to be several minutes late! We both have synced clocks! I am sorry I did not notice you were very tired, I will be sure to remember next time!” The Toy Soldier blinks awkwardly at him again.

“Thank you all for that. I really appreciate it.” He stands up, adjusts his hat and walks over to the door, opening it. “Now do me a favor and leave me alone for a whole day, please.”

“Okay!” “Sure, Brian.” “Alright then.” “Gotcha!”

“No promises!” Marius shoots him a finger gun. Raphaella punches him, prompting a short scuffle, then drags him out with the rest.

Finally. Peace and quiet. And a clear conscience.

But not completely.

“Aurora, did you do that on purpose? The tilting. I know you can stay perfectly parallel, unless Nastya’s lying to me.”

A soft, gentle, amused beeping in binary code came in response. Of course, Brian would never know what exactly she said, for it was cloaked in Cyberian. But he got the gist. Sort of.

_You’re welcome, Dad. :]_

He collapses on the bed again. Gosh, this was what he got for being stuck on MJE two days. He could have flipped it but, well, it was _sort of_ worth it.

Sleep time. Zero Mechanisms. Bliss.

**Author's Note:**

> This was 100% an exercise in expelling all of my Drumbot Brianrot because I am apparently thinking about this character always. Props to my lovely twin who came up with the idea, and then I executed the concept. As we do.
> 
> It's also a dumping spot for stupid headcanons and side stories that we came up with, hence the strange references to Things Not In The Fic Proper, like maid outfit Brian. I might write those. The origin of the non-flesh Mechanism tea party is in the works, and I do so desperately want Vacation Brian to be a thing.
> 
> I just think all the Mechanisms are this weird repressed found-family that happen to be able to kill each other when they need to stress a point.
> 
> Working title- Dadbot Brian: the Daddenings on Starship Aurora II Electric Boogaloo


End file.
